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Michigan weather roller coaster: How much warmth, cold, rain, and snow will we get?

rainfall-amount.jpg

This is the rainfall and liquid equivalent in snowfall forecast for the next 48 hours. We aren't expecting a lot of moisture, with most areas receiving under one-half inch of liquid.
(www.farmerweather.com)

We are going to be on what I like to call the "Michigan weather roller coaster" over the next week.

It is this time of year when my wife asks me if it is going to warm up. I answer yes. Then she asks, "So the cold weather is over?" I answer no. The whole conversation goes like that with rain and snow, too.

So, in a nut shell, we have mild air and rain, then a cool down, then a warm-up, then an almost Arctic outbreak of air. That is all in the next five days.

And with that temperature roller coaster will come the mix of many precipitation types.

The top graphic shows the rainfall amount expected over the next 48 hours. Most of this will fall as rain for Michigan, except in the Upper Peninsula where it will fall as snow. The rainfall amounts are looking like something we can handle. Most of the Lower Peninsula should have between one-quarter and one-half of an inch of rain. It will put more water in the ditches and in the rivers, but it could be a whole lot worse if the rain was going to be heavy.

In the U.P., expect two to four inches of snow to be very common.

View full sizeHigh temperatures on this Wednesday March 19, 2014 should be in the 40s for most of the Lower Peninsula. Colder air will hang back in the western U.P. for today.National Digital Forecast Database - NOAA

Wednesday will continue the melting

High temperatures today should easily make it into the 40s for most of the Lower Peninsula. This will help to continue to melt the snow and ice. With these temperatures, any rain that falls south of a Bay City to Midland line today will be above freezing, with very little threat of freezing rain. North of that line there could be some occasional freezing rain this morning before the temperatures warm up.

View full sizeHigh temperatures on Sunday will be much colder. The U.P. won't hit 20 degrees in most spots, and the Lower Peninsula will be stuck in the 20s.National Digital Forecast Database - NOAA

Another cold plunge for the weekend

The cold air is nowhere near being over. The next cold plunge comes in this weekend. Temperatures should bottom out on Sunday, and very slowly rebound early next week. Sunday will feel like January again. High temperatures in most of the Lower Peninsula will only be in the 20s. The Upper Peninsula will have high temperatures only in the teens.

Do I see a big warm-up in sight?

We can have a pretty good feel for what the next two weeks look like, and I don't see any extended period of warmer than normal weather. But I do think that in the next two weeks we will have about three days that could make it into the 50s, with possibly even a 60-degree temperature. This would happen toward the end of the month. It would be short lived, as it looks like another cold wave will move in after a few days of warm weather.

So we are slowly heading toward spring-like weather, but I want to emphasize slowly.

It looks like the trek to spring will be two steps forward, one step back for the next month.